Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett spun an interesting theory on Wednesday morning, claiming that it is possible that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) didn’t speak to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani henchman Lev Parnas this past spring because “somebody else” may have used his phone.
Call logs included in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report revealed that Nunes, the ranking member of the committee, was involved in extensive communications with Giuliani, Parnas, conservative columnist John Solomon, and the White House in April. The phone calls took place during Giuliani’s Ukraine dirt-digging mission and campaign to discredit then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
During Wednesday morning’s broadcast of Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said that the only new thing he saw in the impeachment report was “this communication between Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani, and the White House.”
“In what way, if any, is that problematic?” Kilmeade wondered aloud. Notably, the Fox host did not mention Parnas, the indicted business associate of Giuliani who has become a key figure in the impeachment inquiry.
“We just don’t know,” Jarrett replied. “We don’t know the details. In fact, it’s a call log.”
“Does that mean that Devin Nunes was actually on the call or somebody else?” Jarrett continued. “And we don’t know the import of it. You know, frankly, I don’t trust Adam Schiff. He has a long and distinguished track record of deception and lies.”
While some of the calls in question originated from Nunes’ phone, there were many other calls in which Nunes was the recipient, including one conversation that lasted more than eight minutes from Parnas.
Jarrett, meanwhile, isn’t the only Trump-boosting Fox News personality pushing an alternative theory to explain away why the Nunes calls aren’t a big deal. During an interview with Nunes on Tuesday night, Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed his “sources” were telling him that three of the four Parnas calls merely featured Giuliani using Parnas’ phone.
Nunes would go on to say that it was “possible” that he spoke to Parnas during that time but that he doesn’t “really recall that name.”